Shraddha Agarwal

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_01-IMG_8897-Crop-SA.jpg

medium_01-IMG_8897-Crop-SA.jpg

small_01-IMG_8897-Crop-SA.jpg

thumbnail_01-IMG_8897-Crop-SA.jpg

01-IMG_8897-Crop-SA.jpg

It’s been a choppy few years for Dilip Koli – cyclones, decreasing fish catch, falling sales. Still, it’s the lockdown that began in March 2020 that’s proved to be the hardest.“The troubles we faced in the past have not been half as bad as the last year,” says Dilip, a 50-year-old fisherman from the Koliwada in south Mumbai’s Colaba area. “There were people willing to fish and people ready to eat the fish, but there was no selling of fish [due to the lockdown, until September 2020]. The markets were closed and we had to dump our catch back into the sea.” Dilip has been working from south Mumbai’s Sassoon Dock for around 35 years. He owns three boats and employs 8-10 fishermen. “During the lockdown we at least managed our rations, but other poor Koli fishermen were left with no food or money,” he says.The fishermen start their workday around 4 a.m., making multiple 40-minute rounds trips into the sea not far from shore during the monsoon months. When the tide starts changing they rest for about an hour and then get back into the sea.&quot;We start early in the morning and finish by afternoon, by 2 or 3. We get to know about the tides through the moon. Only when it is very low tide or very high tide we don&#39;t go fishing,” says Dilip.Some of the fishermen working on his boat, all from the Koli community, travel  nearly 150 kilometres by train or hired vehicles from Washi Haveli, a village of 1040 people (Census 2011) in Raigad district’s Tala taluka to Sassoon Dock in south Mumbai. There they work from around June till August, before the Ganpati festival begins. The rest of the year they travel to other coastal parts of Maharashtra – mainly in Ratnagiri and Raigad districts – and earn Rs. 10,000-12,000 a month working on other people’s boats.

02-IMG_4577-SA.jpg

Though deep-sea fishing activity is banned from late May to early August, Dilip says, “Creek fishing [with dol nets] is allowed here. We have been doing it for years. Our Colaba creek is famous for bombil [Bombay duck] and that fish only comes here in June and July. Fishermen from small villages of Maharashtra come here for our Bombay duck. They make Colaba their home for 2-3 months. It&#39;s good business.”During those months at Sassoon Dock, says Priyal Duri of Washi Haveli village, he and other fishermen work on a percentage basis. “Half of the profit from a day’s catch goes to the boat owner and the rest is split amongst us,” he says. Priyal lost his father to Covid and his mother to leukaemia within three months last year. Unable to finish Class 12 because “we needed money for aai’s treatment” the 27-year-old has been fishing for nearly 10 years. “During monsoons we earn about 700 rupees a day, but last year we hardly made 50 rupees daily. We were sitting at home for one whole year due to Covid,” he adds. With no work, fishermen and their families in Washi Haveli started running out of rations by May 2020. “We ate whatever fish we could catch at a nearby creek. But after the cyclone [Nisarga], we could barely manage food and water. It was the worst year [2020] we have ever seen,” adds Priyal.Cyclone Nisarga hit Maharashtra’s coastal districts on June 3, 2020. “We did not have electricity or phone connection for a month. Our homes were completely destroyed and we got no compensation from the government,” says Priyal, who had to borrow Rs. 40,000 from friends to rebuild the house where he and his older brother Chandrakant (also a fisherman) reside.

Then came Cyclone Tauktae on May 14, 2021. “Our boats were destroyed in the high tide. We have faced losses of lakhs of rupees. The government cannot give us just a few thousand rupees and look good in the eyes of other people. The fishermen are still angry [about this],” says Dilip, whose three sons are also fishermen, while his wife Bharti, 49, sells fish to wholesale buyers at Sassoon Dock (see <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/koli-women-fish-friendship-and-fighting-spirit/">Koli women: fish, friendship and fighting spirit</a>). “They anyway never do anything for us Koli fishermen,&quot; he adds,&quot;but during such cyclones we should be given full compensation.”Adding to these setbacks is a steady fall in fish catch. “When I was young the price of fish was low, but the price of diesel [for the boat] was also 20 rupees a litre. Now the price of diesel is about 100 rupees a litre and the catch has also reduced,” says Dilip.  The fishermen’s nets come up with far fewer popular fish like surmai, pomfret and sardine, he adds. In 2019, there was a 32 per cent decrease in fish landings (catch that arrives at the ports) on the Maharashtra coast as compared to the previous year, notes the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. The report attributes this fall to the cyclonic storms in and around India that year, of which six were severe cyclones.“Our livelihood depends entirely on nature,” Dilip says. “If nature is not good to us, we will lose both our work and lives.”And then, with the Covid-19 pandemic, the fishermen at Sassoon Dock have been trying to weather that storm too.

05-IMG_4596-SA.jpg

06-IMG_4606-SA.jpg

07-IMG_4594-SA.jpg

04-IMG_4580-SA.jpg

08-IMG_8897-SA.jpg

09-IMG_8984-SA.jpg

10-IMG_8962-SA.jpg

11-IMG_8957-SA.jpg

12-IMG_4622-SA.jpg

13-IMG_9009-SA.jpg

14-IMG_9032-SA.jpg

15-IMG_9034-SA.jpg

16-IMG_9016-SA.jpg

17-IMG_8752-SA.jpg

18-IMG_8744-SA.jpg

21-IMG_4571-SA.jpg

20-IMG_4568-SA.jpg

22-IMG_8696-SA.jpg

This story is part of a series of 25 articles on livelihoods under lockdown, supported by the Business and Community Foundation.

Mumbai fishermen: no shelter from this storm

કેટલાં તોફાનો સામે ઝઝૂમે મુંબઈના માછીમારો?

ਸਮੁੰਦਰੀ ਤੂਫ਼ਾਨ ਤੋਂ ਆਖ਼ਰ ਬਚਾਅ ਹੋਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਹੋਵੇ ਕਿਵੇਂ

ಮುಂಬೈ ಮೀನುಗಾರರು; ಚಂಡಮಾರುತಗಳಿಂದ ರಕ್ಷಣೆಯೆಲ್ಲಿ?

मुंबईचे मच्छीमार : या वादळात मात्र आसरा नाही!

പ്രതിസന്ധികളിലൂടെ കടന്നുപോകുന്ന മുംബൈ മത്സ്യബന്ധന സമൂഹം

মুম্বাইৰ মাছমৰীয়া: এইজাক ধুমুহাৰ পৰা নিস্তাৰ নাই

புயலுக்கு தப்ப முடியாத மும்பை மீனவர்கள்

ମୁମ୍ବାଇର ମତ୍ସ୍ୟଜୀବୀ: ଏ ଝଡ଼ରୁ ବର୍ତ୍ତିବାର ବାଟ ନାହିଁ

کتنے طوفانوں کا سامنا کریں ممبئی کے ماہی گیر

মুম্বইয়ের মৎস্যজীবী সমাজ: অকূল দরিয়ায় নাও টলোমলো

कितने तूफ़ानों का सामना करें मुंबई के मछुआरे

Colaba

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Mumbai fishermen: no shelter from this storm

In recent years, fishermen who set sail from south Mumbai’s Sassoon Dock have weathered cyclones, falling fish catch, poor sales – but the impact of the lockdowns since March 2020 has proved to be the hardest

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit